Shawn, I called brent a ciuple weeks back and bugged him a bit. Long syory short my DSP is getting the LFR+180 reprogram all at one shot.. I think at the time I saw a post of Ian's eluding to center channel upgrades.... anyhow I think it will be a bit before I get my DSP/ woofers... but, im ok with that.

When I first read this thread I missed the statement from Ian that the upgraded woofer for the M100 are different than the same size woofer for the high powered M80.I also missed that Ian had referred to the M80's crossovers as being analogue. Have they be changed/are they now digital?Just fishing for info...

_________________________
I need to go back to work but I really like not going to work....

I tend to divide crossovers into three categories: analogue, active, and digital.

An analogue crossover, or high level crossover, resides in the speaker and divides the signal after amplification thereby only requiring one channel of amplification per speaker.

An active crossover uses analogue parts but divides the signal at line level before the amplifiers and therefore requires a designated amp channel for each section of the speaker (bass, mid, and treble for a 3-way)

A digital crossover divides the signal at line level also but does so using a Digital Signal Processor in the digital domain. This type of crossover also requires and amp channel for each section.

I guess then there is a fourth category which is an analogue/digital hybrid where the DSP is used to control the amplitude response of each amp channel in conjunction with an analogue crossover in the speaker. This is how the LFR series works.

Just a thought, how would a mid speaker (5.25) fair out on the top of an lfr1100 as per the qs8's perhaps even paired with a tweeter. that would be a real omnidirectional speaker, sort of a qs8 on steroids!! maybe a LFRT1250 ?

Since the Mirage OMD's have been mentioned...Andrew Welker who now works with Ian at Axiom was the designer behind those beautiful Mirages. There is likely patents that Mirage has on that particular omni-directional design, so, even though Andrew was instrumental in it's concept...

_________________________
Half of communication is listening. You can't listen with your mouth.

Since the Mirage OMD's have been mentioned...Andrew Welker who now works with Ian at Axiom was the designer behind those beautiful Mirages. There is likely patents that Mirage has on that particular omni-directional design, so, even though Andrew was instrumental in it's concept...

Back when these "Omnidirectional" speakers were first introduced I was quite intrigued and ended up purchasing the center channel speaker that was part of the model group that went with the floor standers shown in the ad. It had two 5 and a half inch woofers with the same tweeter positioned over the small mid-range and even though it was limited by its relatively small size thus producing the usual "boxy" mid-range sound, it had, by far, the most amazing off-axis response I have ever heard in a center channel.

You could literally stand 90% off-axis, facing the side of the speaker, and the response was almost the same as sitting directly in front of it in the normal sweet spot!

Regardless of size, off-axis response is always variable to some degree in any "front-firing" center channel so I would be interested to get a response from Andrew on this and could a similar design be configured in the Axiom models that could produce a similar result as the OMD design?